At base of Annursnack I find one or two fringed gentians yet open.

November 3

November 3, 2014

Colder weather, true November weather, comes again to-night, and I must rekindle my fire, which I had done without of late. I must walk briskly in order to keep warm in my thin coat. 

P. M. — To Annursnack.

I am inclined to think that pignuts fall earlier than mocker-nuts, i. e. the leaves, and that the first are now about fallen (?). Those on Nawshawtuct are bare, but I see a great many hickories of some kind not nearly bare. 

Monroe’s arbor-vitae hedge has fallen. Put it with the white pine. 

The jay is the bird of October. I have seen it repeatedly flitting amid the bright leaves, of a different color from them all and equally bright, and taking its flight from grove to grove. It, too, with its bright color, stands for some ripeness in the bird harvest. And its scream! it is as if it blowed on the edge of an October leaf. It is never more in its element and at home than when flitting amid these brilliant colors. No doubt it delights in bright color, and so has begged for itself a brilliant coat. It is not gathering seeds from the sod, too busy to look around, while fleeing the country. It is wide awake to what is going on, on the qui vive. It flies to some bright tree and bruits its splendors abroad. 

By fall I mean literally the falling of the leaves, though some mean by it the changing or the acquisition of a brighter color. This I call the autumnal tint, the ripening to the fall. 

The only white birch leaves now seen are those lingering green terminal leaves of the 23d, now at last turned yellow, for they are now burnt upward to the last spark and glimmering. Methinks the birch ripens its leaves very perfectly though gradually. 

I should say that that tree which ripened its leaves well, like this, was better suited to the climate than one like the locust and most apples, —which was mostly killed by frost first annually. Perhaps this tells at last on the constitution of the tree, and that variety would be safest to cultivate which matured its leaves best. 

The pitch pine fallen and falling leaves now and for some time have not been bright or yellow, but brown. 

At base of Annursnack I find one or two fringed gentians yet open, but even the stems are generally killed. 

I notice that the cows lately admitted to the meadows and orchards have browsed the grass, etc., closely, on that strip between the dry hillside and the wet meadow, where it is undoubtedly sweetest and freshest yet, and where it chances that this late flower the gentian grows. There, too, grows the herbage which is now the most grateful to the cattle. 

Also Aster undulatus is still freshly in bloom; yarrow, etc., etc. Much Lycopodium complanatum not open yet. 

Returning, I see at the very northwest end of the White Cedar Swamp a little elder, still quite leafy and green, near the path on the edge of the swamp. Its leafets are commonly nine, and the lower two or more are commonly divided. This seemed peculiarly downy beneath, even “sub-pubescent,” as Bigelow describes the Sambucus pubens to be. Compare it with the common. 

Also by it is Viburnum nudum, still quite fresh and green, the slender shoots from starting plants very erect and straight. 

The lower leaves of the water andromeda are now red, and the lambkill leaves are drooping (is it more than before?) and purplish from the effect of frost in low swamps like this. 

Though I listen for them, I do not hear a cricket this afternoon. I think that I heard a few in the afternoon of November 1st. They then sounded peculiarly distinct, being but few here and there on a dry and warm hill, bird-like. Yet these seemed to be singing a little louder and in a little loftier strain, now that the chirp of the cricket generally was quenched. 

November 3, 2024

How long we will follow an illusion! On meeting that one whom I call my friend, I find that I had imagined something that was not there. I am sure to depart sadder than I came. Nothing makes me so dejected as to have met my friends, for they make me doubt if it is possible to have any friends. I feel what a fool I am. I cannot conceive of persons more strange to me than they actually are; not thinking, not believing, not doing as I do; interrupted by me. My only distinction must be that I am the greatest bore they ever had. Not me single thought agreed; regularly balking one another. But when I get far away, my thoughts return to them. That is the way I can visit them. Perhaps it is unaccountable to me why I care for them. Thus I am taught that my friend is not an actual person. When I have withdrawn and am alone, I forget the actual person and remember only my ideal. Then I have a friend again. 

I am not so ready to perceive the illusion that is in Nature. I certainly come nearer, to say the least, to an actual and joyful intercourse with her. Every day I have more or less communion with her, as I think. At least, I do not feel as if I must withdraw out of nature. I feel like a welcome guest. Yet, strictly speaking, the same must be true of nature and of man; our ideal is the only real. It is not the finite and temporal that satisfies or concerns us in either case.

I associate the idea of friendship, methinks, with the person the most foreign to me. This illusion is perpetuated, like superstition in a country long after civilization has been attained to. We are attracted toward a particular person, but no one has discovered the laws of this attraction. When I come nearest to that other actually, I am wont to be surprised at my selection. It may be enough that we have met some time, and now can never forget it. Some time or other we paid each other  this wonderful compliment, looked largely, humanly, divinely on one another, and now are fated to be acquaintances forever. 

In the case of nature I am not so conscious of this unsatisfied yearning.

Some oak woods begin to look bare, and even smoky, after their fashion. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 3, 1858


By fall I mean literally the falling of the leaves. See November 11, 1851 (The fall of the year is over.")

Though I listen for them, I do not hear a cricket this afternoon. I think that I heard a few in the afternoon of November 1st. See November 8, 1853 ("Perchance I heard the last cricket of the season yesterday. They chirp here and there at longer and longer intervals, till the snow quenches their song."); Seee also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cricket in November

At base of Annursnack I find one or two fringed gentians yet open, but even the stems are generally killed. See October 10, 1858 ("To Annursnack  . . . I find the fringed gentian abundantly open at 3 and at 4 P. M., — in fact, it must be all the afternoon, — open to catch the cool October sun and air in its low position. Such a dark blue! surpassing that of the male bluebird’s back, who must be encouraged by its presence."); October 12, 1857 ("To Annursnack . . . The fringed gentian by the brook opposite is in its prime.");  November 4, 1853 (“To Hubbard's Close. I find no traces of the fringed gentian here, so that in low meadows I suspect it does not last very late”); November 30, 1856 (“Minot Pratt tells me that he watched the fringed gentian this year, and it lasted till the first week in November..”) See allso A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: The Fringed Gentian

Alone, I forget 

the real person – remember 

only my ideal.

November Lights: The dark-eyed junco flits amid the falling leaves with its sharp twitter.

October 25. 

P. M. — To the Beeches. 

October 25, 2023

I look at the willows by the causeway, east side, as I go, — Salix discolor, Torreyana, rostrata, and lucida are all almost quite bare, and the remaining leaves are yellow or yellowish. Those of the last the clearest and most conspicuous yellow. S. pedicellaris is merely yellowish, being rather green and not fallen. The S. alba at a distance looks very silvery in the light.

Now that the leaves are fallen (for a few days), the long yellow buds (often red-pointed) which sleep along the twigs of the S. discolor are very conspicuous and quite interesting, already even carrying our thoughts for ward to spring. I noticed them first on the 22d. They may be put with the azalea buds already noticed. Even bleak and barren November wears these gems on her breast in sign of the coming year. How many thoughts lie undeveloped, and as it were dormant, like these buds, in the minds of men!

This is the coolest day thus far, reminding me that I have only a half-thick coat on. The easterly wind comes cold into my ear, as yet unused to it. Yet this first decided coolness - not to say wintriness — is not only bracing but exhilarating and concentrating [to] our forces. So much the more I have a hearth and heart within me. We step more briskly, and brace ourselves against the winter. 

I see some alders about bare. Aspens (tremuliformis) generally bare. 

Near the end of the causeway, milkweed is copiously discounting. This is much fairer than the thistle-down. It apparently bursts its pods after rain especially (as yesterday’s), opening on the under side, away from succeeding rains. Half a dozen seeds or more, attached by the tips of their silks to the core of the pod, will be blown about there a long time before a strong puff launches them away, and in the meanwhile they are expanding and drying their silk. 

In the cut the F. hyemalis, which has been here for a month, flits away with its sharp twitter amid the falling leaves. This is a fall sound. 

At the pond the black birches are bare; how long? 

Now, as you walk in woods, the leaves rustle under your feet as much as ever. In some places you walk pushing a mass before you. In others they half cover pools that are three rods long. They make it slippery climbing hills. 

Now, too, for the different shades of brown, especially in sprout-lands. I see [three] kinds of oaks now, — the whitish brown of the white oak, the yellowish brown of the black oak, and the red or purplish brown [of the scarlet oak]  (if it can be called brown at all, for it is not faded to brown yet and looks full of life though really withered (i. e. the shrubs) for the most part, excepting here and there leading shoots or spring twigs, which glow as bright a scarlet as ever). There is no red here, but perhaps that may be called a lighter, yellowish brown, and so distinguished from the black in color. It has more life in it now than the white and black, not withered so much. These browns are very pure and wholesome colors, far from spot and decay, and their rustling leaves call the roll for a winter campaign. How different now the rustling of these sere leaves from the soft, fluttering murmur of the same when alive! This sharp rustle warns all to go home now who are not prepared for a winter campaign.

The scarlet oak shrubs are as distinct amid the other species as before they had withered, and it is remarkable how evenly they are distributed over the hills, by some law not quite understood. Nature ever plots against Baker and Stow, Moore and Hosmer. 

The black scrub oak, seen side by side with the white, is yet lighter than that. 

How should we do without this variety of oak leaves, — the forms and colors? On many sides, the eye requires such variety (seemingly infinite) to rest on. 

Chestnut trees are generally bare, showing only a thin crescent of burs, for they are very small this year. I climb one on Pine Hill, looking over Flint’s Pond, which, indeed, I see from the ground. These young chestnuts growing in clumps from a stump are hard to climb, having few limbs below, far apart, and they dead and rotten. 

The brightest tint of the black oaks that I remember was some yellow gleams from half green and brownish leaves; i. e., the tops of the large trees have this yellowish and green look. It is a mellow yellow enough, without any red. The brightest of the red oaks were a pretty delicate scarlet, inclining to a brownish yellow, the effect enhanced by the great size of the leaf. 

When, on the 22d, I was looking from the Cliffs on the shrub oak plain, etc., calling some of the brightest tints flame-like, I saw the flames of a burning — for we see their smokes of late—two or three miles distant in Lincoln rise above the red shrubbery, and saw how in intensity and brilliancy the real flame distanced all colors, even by day.

Now, especially, we notice not only the silvery leaves of the Salix alba but the silvery sheen of pine-needles; i. e., when its old leaves have fallen and trees generally are mostly bare, in the cool Novemberish air and light we observe and enjoy the trembling shimmer and gleam of the pine-needles. 

I do not know why we perceive this more at this season, unless because the air is so clear and all surfaces reflect more light; and, besides, all the needles now left are fresh ones, or the growth of this year. Also I notice, when the sun is low, the light reflected from the parallel twigs of birches recently bare, etc., like the gleam from gossamer lines. This is another Novemberish phenomenon. Call these November Lights. Hers is a cool, silvery light. 

In November consider the sharp, dry rustle of withered leaves; the cool, silvery, and shimmering gleams of light, as above; the fresh bright buds formed and exposed along the twigs; walnuts. 

The leaves of the Populus grandidentata, though half fallen and turned a pure and handsome yellow, are still wagging as fast as ever. These do not lose their color and wither on the tree like oaks and beeches and some of their allies, and hickories, too, and button wood, neither do maples, nor birches quite, nor willows (except the Salix tristis and perhaps some of the next allied), — but they are fresh and unwilted, full of sap and fair as ever when they are first strewn on the ground. I do not think of any tree whose leaves are so fresh and fair when they fall.

The beech has just fairly turned brown of different shades, but not yet crisped or quite withered. Only the young in the shade of the woods are yet green and yellow. Half the leaves of the last are a light yellow with a green midrib, and are quite light and bright seen through the woods. The lower parts, too, of the large tree are yellow yet. I should put this tree, then, either with the main body of the oaks or between them and the scarlet oak. I have not seen enough to judge of their beauty. 

Returning in an old wood-path from top of Pine Hill to Goose Pond, I see many goldenrods turned purple — all the leaves. Some of them are Solidago coesia and some (I think) S. puberula. Many goldenrods, as S. odorata, turn yellow or paler. The Aster undulatus is now a dark purple (its leaves), with brighter purple or crimson under sides. The Viburnum dentatum leaves, which are rather thin now, are drooping like the Cornus sericea (although fresh), and are mixed purplish and light green.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  October 25, 1858

I look at the willows by the causeway, -- all almost quite bare. See October 25, 1855 ("The willows along the river now begin to look faded and somewhat bare and wintry.")

The long yellow buds (often red-pointed) which sleep along the twigs of the S. discolor are very conspicuous and quite interesting. See October 18, 1859 (The long, curved, yellowish buds of the Salix discolor begin to show, the leaves falling; even the down has peeped out from under some."); October 24, 1860 ("I see those narrow pointed yellow buds now laid bare so thickly along the slender twigs of the Salix discolor, which is almost bare of leaves.")

Near the end of the causeway, milkweed is copiously discounting. See October 19, 1856 ("The Asclepias Cornuti pods are now apparently in the midst of discounting."); September 21, 1856 ("Asclepias Cornuti discounting.")

In the cut the F. hyemalis, which has been here for a month, flits away with its sharp twitter amid the falling leaves. This is a fall sound.  See October 22, 1859 ("F. hyemalis quite common for a week past."); October 26, 1857 ("each uttering a faint chip from time to time, as if to keep together, bewildering you so that you know not if the greater part are gone by or still to come. One rests but a moment on the tree before you and is gone again. You wonder if they know whither they are bound, and how their leader is appointed.") See also A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, the Dark-eyed Junco (Fringilla hyemalis)

The leaves rustle under your feet as much as ever. In some places you walk pushing a mass before you. See  October 10, 1851 ("You make a great noise now walking in the woods."); October 20, 1853 ("How pleasant to walk over beds of these fresh, crisp, and rustling fallen leaves!")  October 22, 1854 ('Now they rustle as you walk through them in the woods."); October 22, 1857 ("As I go through the woods now, so many oak and other leaves have fallen the rustling noise somewhat disturbs my musing. "); October 28, 1852 ("I hear no sound but the rustling of the withered leaves, and, on the wooded hilltops, the roar of the wind.”); October 28, 1860 ("We make a great noise going through the fallen leaves in the woods and wood-paths now, so that we cannot hear other sounds. ”)

Another Novemberish phenomenon. Call these November Lights. Hers is a cool, silvery light. See October 16, 1859 ("This clear, cold, Novemberish light is inspiriting. Some twigs which are bare and weeds begin to glitter with hoary light. The very edge or outline of a tawny or russet hill has this hoary fight on it. Your thoughts sparkle like the water surface and the downy twigs."); November 28, 1856 ("At 3.30 p. m., the sunlight reflected from the many ascending twigs of bare young chestnuts and birches, very dense and ascendant with a marked parallelism, they remind me of the lines of gossamer at this season, being almost exactly similar to the eye. It is a true November phenomenon.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Gossamer Days

The scarlet oak shrubs are as distinct amid the other species . . . distributed over the hills, by some law not quite understood. See October 31, 1858 ("There is brought out a more brilliant redness in the scarlet oaks, scattered so equally over the forest, than you would have believed was in them. Every tree of this species which is visible in these directions, even to the horizon, now stands out distinctly red."); November 1, 1858 ("If you wish to count the scarlet oaks. do it now. Stand on a hilltop in the woods, when the sun is an hour high and the sky is clear, and every one within range of your vision will be revealed." )See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Scarlet Oak

Cool silvery light

like the gleam from gossamer

reflects from bare twigs 

The trembling shimmer 

and gleam of the pine-needles –

these November lights.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, November Lights

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2024

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